Commentary on The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant

This story is about Matilda and her husband. Matilda receives an invitation to attend to a party, but she has no jewelry to wear, so she borrows one from a rich friend. Unfortunately, Matilda loses the necklace at the party and has to buy a new one worth thirty-five thousand francs. She works for years to repay all the money she borrowed, but when she finally gets all the money, she finds out the necklace was worth “No more than five hundred francs.” This story has two unexpected twists in it: she loses the necklace and she works for years to pay it off, only to find out it is less than one sixth of what she paid. How Matilda deals with finding out the price is left to the reader’s imagination, but it shows that when Matilda loses the necklace she deals with it relatively calmly, borrowing money to buy a new one and later working for years to pay it

5. (CP) Madame Loisel borrows seemingly expensive necklace to satisfy her arrogance and attend a party that was way above her social class, only to lose it. She has been blessed with physical beauty, but not with the lifestyle she desires. She may not be the ideal protagonist, but she went through a tough time after she lost the necklace and had to make money to replace it.

Since the very day of her birth, Mathidle has constantly chased after the affluent existence as she fantasizes that women like her friend, Madam Forestier, relish. Through her husband’s invitation to the minister’s gala, she adorns herself in a fine dress and a priceless diamond necklace, and transforms her into a beautiful envied person far from her usual impoverished disposition. However, after she loses the necklace, replaces it, and repays the debts, she finds pleasure within her “new” life as a lower class woman, which is who she was destined to

Mathilde Loisel lived the life of a painfully distressed woman, who always believed herself worthy of living in the upper class. Although Mathilde was born into the average middle class family, she spent her time daydreaming of her destiny for more in life... especially when it came to her financial status. Guy de Maupassant’s short story, “The Necklace”, tells a tale of a vain, narcissistic housewife who longed for the aristocratic lifestyle that she believed she was creditable for. In describing Mathilde’s self-serving, unappreciative, broken and fake human behaviors, de Maupassant incorporates the tragic irony that ultimately concludes in ruining her.

Between misplacing priorities and self-absorption Mathilde Loisel is created in the story, “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant. Mathilde has just about everything a woman could want: remarkable beauty, a loving husband, and a comfortable lifestyle. Material riches are the only category in which she believes she is inadequate to other women. This one factor sets up the conflict present in the story. Throughout the turmoil she must endure, due to her egotistical ways, one would think she would have a change in heart and mindset. Mathilde has a dissatisfied disposition that does not evolve even as her situation does; she is disgruntled being in the middle class, as well as attending a first class event, and ultimately being in the working class.

It took ten years for Mathilde and her husband to pay off the debt of buying a new necklace. Those ten years were not spent with the luxuries she experienced so many years ago at the party, nor were they filled with the simple things she once owned and despised. She came to know “the horrible existence of the needy. She bore her part, however, with sudden heroism.” When passing her rich friend again in the street, she was barely recognizable. Who she was the day she ran into her friend was not who she was the night she wore that necklace.

Ten years of suffering is the cost of having pleasure for only one night! In “The Necklace,” by Guy de Maupassant presents Mathilde Loisel, an attractive, charming but vacuous and selfish middle class lady transforms to selfness, poor, satisfied and hard-working lady. Even though, Mathidle owns a comfortable home and married to a faithful and kind husband, Monsieur Loisel, who seeks her happiness and satisfaction; she was ungrateful to the things that she had been given, because her greed and desire of wealth had captured her thoughts and blurred the real meaning of happiness in her perspective. Mathidle spends most of her time surfing in her day dreams of being wealthy and suffering from accepting the reality, because her imagination was more than she could not afford. One day Mathidle’s husband brought his wife an invitation for a fancy party, but as a result of their low income, Mathidle’s was ashamed to wear flowers as decoration, so she decided to borrow an expensive looking necklace from a friend of her, Madame Forestier. After attending the fabulous party and spending a memorable great time looking stunningly beautiful, Mathidle discovers that she had lost the expensive necklace that she borrowed, so she decides to buy a similar copy of the necklace to her friend after loaning an enormous amount of money and narrowing the house outcome. The author surprises his readers with a perfectly detailed twist at the end of the story. Losing the necklace was a turning point in Mathidle’s life and the best thing that ever happened to her.

Janwillem Van De Wetering says, “Greed is a fat demon with a small mouth and whatever you feed it is never enough.” Guy De Maupassant’s “The Necklace” tells of Mrs. Mathilde Loisel’s longings for the finer things in life. Her desires are so intense she risks her husband’s affections, the friendship of an old chum, and even her mediocre lifestyle to pursue these cravings. One small decision based on an ill-placed desire causes a slow drawn out death of the spirit, body and relationships.

Furthermore, the lifestyle both women want ends up in disaster however, one ends in death while the other in hard labor. In "The Necklace", the wife ends up losing her friend’s expensive necklace which causes her to work hard to earn enough money to pay of a new one. Due to all the work she loses her beauty. In contrast, whereas in "The Jewels" the constant attendance of the opera house during the winter causes her to die of inflammation which resulted a deep sorrow towards the husband. Both wife’s lived life differently. Both tries to find the best way to fulfill their desire for the good

Values are spread all around the world, and many people’s values differ. These can lead to people being judged, or indirectly characterized by other people. In “The Necklace” Mme. Loisel is a beautiful woman with a decent life, and a husband that loves her, and only wants to make her happy. She is not rich but she makes it along, she insists of a better, wealthier life. When her husband gets her invited to a ball, she feels the need for a brand new fancy dress and tons of jewelry. When the couple realizes they cannot afford jewelry as well, they search out to borrow her friend, Mme. Forestiers’ necklace. She comes to notice she no longer has the necklace on when she leaves the ball. This later troubles her, as she has to work for a long time to collect enough money to buy a new necklace. This story describes the relationship between a couple, who have different dreams, and how desires can revamp your life. Guy de Maupassant, the author of “The Necklace” uses literary devices to prove people come before materialistic items.